


hopeless hearts just passing through

by sindubu



Category: A Pink (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 00:17:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5143310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sindubu/pseuds/sindubu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But did you really think,” asks Eunji, taking the soju bottle from her and tucking it back into a loose floorboard in her room -- a secret spot their manager oppa never checks, “that you’d be together? It’s crazy. It’s crazy even if we weren’t idols.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	hopeless hearts just passing through

**Author's Note:**

> trying to get back into posting fic, so i went into my docs and finished off this one shot i've been meaning to get around to posting. if you like it, please let me know, and if you don't, thanks for reading anyway! title comes from tori kelly's "i was made for loving you."

Everyone else is in on the joke.

She fidgets in her seat as the interviewer zeroes in on their leader. Namjoo leans heavy against her shoulder, weight warm and full of meaning, but she doesn’t look at her, doesn’t bring attention to it. Cameras pick up on everything these days, they know. They know.

_Sunny-sshi had a lot to say about one of you the last time she was here…_

Somewhere to her right, Chorong laughs shyly. Her mouth curls at the sound, a little smile she remembers being taught as a trainee. Use a little teeth, the company sunbae said, and smile with your eyes. But when the interview comes out, netizens say she looks ungrateful, _fame is fleeting, Bomi, be grateful for what you have._

Bomi never did get that last part down.

\--

Before the fame, before the sold out concerts and especially before interested sunbaes Bomi can’t begin to hold a candle to, they were trainees. Chorong finds her once in a practice room, knees to her chest and breathing slow, even breaths, trying to stop the riptide that threatens to swallow her whole and leave her crying an ocean of tears on the floor.

People would kill to be in her shoes right now, she knows, but she is just a kid, too, and the words of harsh instructors cut deep. It’s Chorong who finds her like this, eyes watery and pink nose sniffling defeat.

It’s not how she imagined her first kiss -- crying, with a girl, with Chorong -- but by the end of it, her hand is fisted in her shirt after pulling her closer and it’s the only part of her that’s sure of what she’s doing. Bomi doesn’t trust her voice not to shake and fall apart, so she stays silent.

Chorong leans in again, all dark eyes and firm, sweet mouth that has to taste the salt of Bomi’s tears but presses on anyway, and it starts here, if she had to pinpoint an exact moment.

\--

So Chorong scuffs her feet and speaks shyly when she’s on the phone with Sunny for FM Date, but Bomi remembers when they were younger. She doesn’t forget.

Not that she’s innocent in all of this either, to be fair, but Chorong’s act isn’t fooling her.

If she provided the kindling, after all, then Chorong always held the match.

\--

It happens slowly -- sort of -- and almost naturally enough that it seems like an accident.

But it’s no accident the way Bomi makes sure to sit at least one seat away from Chorong during interviews, and how when they do come into contact on broadcast, it’s always forced on her end, brief and appeasing enough to the fans so that she can spend the rest of her time hanging off virtually anyone else.

Chorong isn’t stupid, either. Bomi feels her gaze on her back when she walks away from her, sidles next to a boy from a group she couldn’t name a single song from, wonders if it’s love or anger she swears she feels coming from the other girl.

Maybe it’s both. It’s hard to tell the difference these days, really.

\--

“Enough.”

Chorong’s gaze is hard but her voice dips into something softer, cracked and -- Bomi looks away. She has to. “Bom-ah,” Chorong says, and Bomi balls her hands into fists at her sides, you can’t say that anymore, you can’t do this.

She blinks and her eyes are itchy. They’ve just come from a late recording and she hasn’t washed her makeup off yet. Chorong has -- her face is scrubbed fresh and pink, eyes round and face pale in the dim light from the lamp in Bomi’s room. 

She looks young. Bomi swallows a lump against her throat. Chorong looks young and lost when all she ever does is try to seem the exact opposite. She doesn’t want to think about what it means that she’s come to her like this, when all they’ve ever done is play cat and mouse. It’s what their fans say, too, but they don’t know how deep the game runs. They don’t know the last time Bomi’s seen Chorong like this was the night before their debut, nervous breaths mingling between their mouths and _everything changes now, Bom-ah,_ swallowing her own, _this too?_

Bomi shakes her head.

“You must be tired,” she says in reply, brushing past her in the doorway as Hayoung sleepily exits the bathroom and leaves the light on for her. “Sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.” They have too many long days.

Enough, Bomi thinks.

\--

No one else is as brutally honest with her as Eunji is, which is something Bomi appreciates as much as she hates.

“But did you really think,” asks Eunji, taking the soju bottle from her and tucking it back into a loose floorboard in her room -- a secret spot their manager oppa never checks, “that you’d be together? It’s crazy. It’s crazy even if we weren’t idols.”

The alcohol has numbed the sting of her words, but it still feels like a significant blow to her chest, dulled but nonetheless there, deep and promising to hurt more the longer she thinks about it.

“I didn’t think I’d have to watch her like this,” answers Bomi slowly. Eunji leans back onto her bed, arms folded behind her head and shakes her head.

“I don’t think it’s that serious.”

Bomi falls down onto Eunji’s bed, too, sinks into the comforter like maybe it’ll swallow her whole if she’s lucky. “That’s worse.”

“How’s it worse?”

“Because,” Bomi whispers. “I don’t know what she’s thinking playing along with all of this. I don’t know what’s real for her.” She exhales.

“I don’t know if anything was.”

\--

That’s what it is, really, when it comes down to it.

“It’s a joke, Bom-ah.” Chorong walks up to her where she’s been caught looking at the wreath Sunny’s fanclub have gifted them -- mostly Chorong -- for their concert. 

Chorong wrings her hands together and looks at it, too, lip caught between her teeth. She’s going to rub the gloss off, Bomi knows without even looking. Their stylist always complains.

“It’s for fun,” she adds, after a beat of silence, “just for show, you know?”

“Unnie,” Bomi smiles, a little sad, a lot resigned, “Everything about our lives is just for show.”

It’s always been the joke she’s never found funny.

\--

She stays out of the public eye for a little while.

A premeditated move against overexposure is what it’s called, and she catches up on all her dramas, learns to do more than pluck a few chords on the guitar Namjoo gifted her, and even spends more time on the phone with her family with all the extra time.

With her face absent on variety shows, though, others pick up her slack. Hayoung goes on Weekly Idol. Eunji takes on another drama. Naeun, too. Bomi picks up after them without complaint when they leave their things around the dorm, pushing them to bed when they trail in on late night shoots with a grin and a well timed swat on the rear.

Chorong’s there, of course, because they all live together and she’s the leader, so she’s going to look after the others, too. She forces Naeun to eat before she sleeps, stern even when the younger girl claims she’ll bloat. She tucks Hayoung in when she’s tired enough to let her, too, folding an extra blanket over long limbs so she keeps warm. 

She tries to boss Eunji around, too, but Eunji’s always been good at taking care of herself; she usually comes in the latest, shoots them both a look that more or less translates to _stop taking care of everyone else but each other_ before heading off to her room. The door closes a little too loudly, or maybe they’re just too quiet, but each time, they look at each other, if only for a moment.

Bomi’s always afraid of what her face says. _We used to kiss and I’m still fighting to forget the imprint of your lips against mine so give me a reason not to,_ maybe, or _I’m tired, I’ve been so tired, too, please let me rest._

She’s afraid of what Chorong’s face says, too. It’s heavy, loaded with something she hasn’t been able to crack the code to, but it wouldn’t be impossible to, Bomi knows. She’s just too afraid to try.

\--

It’s a week later when her door opens a little past midnight, and Bomi starts, nearly hitting her head against the headboard. The rain is unrelenting against her windows, and a sudden clap of thunder makes her jump again.

“If you’ve come to tuck me in,” Bomi says with a shaky laugh as Chorong closes the door behind her. “Good luck. It’s Hayoung who can sleep through the world ending.”

“The world isn’t ending, Bom-ah,” Chorong chides, finding her way in the dark to her and sliding under the covers. Bomi shivers for an entirely different reason as hands circle around her waist. “You’re being dramatic.”

Thunder rumbles in the distance and Bomi curls into her, hating herself a little for it. “That’s what everyone says before the world ends,” she answers seriously, before swallowing and asking because she can’t help it -- “Why are you here?”

“You hate storms,” Chorong mutters, and she’s close enough Bomi can feel her breath against her skin when she speaks. “You can hate me, too, but I don’t want you to be alone tonight.”

Bomi’s heart jumps to her throat. “I do hate you a little bit,” she says, because she’s petty even if it isn’t true, not one bit, and, “thanks.” She lets Chorong pull her closer and holds on, just in case. 

“I’m still mad,” she adds, slightly childishly, because she feels a bit braver now that she’s in the arms of the same person she’s upset with. It doesn’t really make sense, but then again, neither does she. Chorong used to tell her all the time.

She sighs a little. “Because of -- ?”

“Because it’s not a joke, even if it is,” Bomi interrupts, “It’s real, you know. At least for some people.” And then, because why not, while they’re being honest. “At least for me.”

Chorong is silent for a long time, her shoulders tense, and Bomi can feel it, too, the way her fingers close and open at the fabric of her shirt, like she doesn’t know whether to hold on or let go. 

“If you’re going to go,” Bomi’s voice trembles, trying to force something in there that isn’t, when all she is is scared and unsure and terrified to know the truth, and this is why they don’t talk about things, for the record. “Don’t call Eunji, she’ll just laugh every time there’s thunder and I nearly fall off the bed.”

“Bom-ah,” Chorong scolds, then grows soft, warm like summer, “Bom-ah, I’m sorry.”

Something drops in her stomach and Bomi tries to push herself out of Chorong’s arms. “I know,” Bomi answers, voice hardening and breaking all at once, “I know, okay, so -- ”

“No, no, Bomi,” Chorong pulls her close and rests her chin on her shoulder, “I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I didn’t think -- I mean, I knew but….” She trails off. “We were so young.”

“It was real for me,” Bomi breathes, eyes shut tight as she sniffles and when did she start crying?

Chorong pulls away and drops a kiss on her forehead. She kisses her cheeks, the tear tracks against her skin and stops at her lips. She answers with her mouth, with a declaration that makes Bomi whimper and Chorong promise not to go away again. Her heart beats frantically against her chest, unbelieving, but Chorong doesn’t stop kissing her until she hears _it was real for me, too._


End file.
